Golden Temple off Obama’s India agenda, Gandhi on
. U.S. President Barack Obama will not visit the Golden Temple in Amritsar during his trip to India next month, the White House confirmed on Wednesday
But he will make several other cultural stops, including two related to the revered Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, who is a hero to many African-Americans and was an inspiration to the U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King.
Obama is visiting the Gandhi Museum in Mumbai and will also lay a wreath on Gandhi’s grave in New Delhi during his visit.
“The example of Gandhi is one that has inspired Americans, inspired African Americans, including Dr. King, and it’s very personally important to the President. So we’re looking forward to visiting the Gandhi Museum to underscore those shared experiences and shared values,” Deputy Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters.
Other cultural events during the trip include a celebration of the Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, with schoolchildren, and a visit to the tomb of the Mughal Emperor Humayun in New Delhi.
But Obama will not visit the Golden Temple, a pilgrimage site for Sikhs in the northern city of Amritsar. Obama had been expected to visit the holy site, but Indian media reports said that plan was canceled after Obama’s handlers balked at the idea of the U.S. president wearing a headscarf or skullcap while touring the site.
Obama faces persistent talk among some members of the U.S. public that he is a Muslim and, the reports said, aides feared pictures of him wearing such headgear could fuel such rumors.
No decision yet on Obama Golden Temple visit: White House
Hold onto your, er, hats.
Talk that U.S. President Barack Obama has canceled a visit to The Golden Temple in Amritsar because of a dispute over headgear may be premature, the White House said on Wednesday.
“We pick sites on foreign trips based on what the president wants to accomplish,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters traveling on Air Force One. Not, presumably, the outfit he might have to wear at a given site.
Obama had been expected to visit the Golden Temple in northern India, a pilgrimage site for Sikhs, during his tour of the country next month. But Indian media reports said Obama’s handlers balked at the idea of the U.S. president wearing a headscarf or skullcap while touring the site.
Obama faces persistent talk among some members of the U.S. public that he is a Muslim and, the reports said, aides said pictures of him wearing such headgear could fuel such rumors.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is a Sikh.
Gibbs said Obama’s final itinerary during his India trip had yet to be finalized, but he expected it would be in the course of the next week.
Being an Indian let me tell the American public one thing, it does not matter if he does not visit the temple, he can just skip the whole visit itself, visiting, looking into the structure makes no special impact on the relationship, chill, its perfectly okay, the president will not be mistaken or misunderstood, democrats or his citizens need not judge him on this, it has nothing to do with ‘looks like a Malaysian songkok’ the president lived in Indonesia, which was predominatly Muslim, it is obvious he is secular in all aspects.
Will Gulf getaway be much of a vacation for Obama?
A two-day trip to the Gulf Coast for President Barack Obama and his family will feature some beach time but maybe not a great deal of rest and relaxation.
Previewing the first family’s vacation to Panama City, Florida, this weekend, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said it would include briefings on the oil spill cleanup, an update on how weather would affect the completion of the relief well and discussions about the spill’s impact on businesses.
Obama will also serve as chief pitchman for the effort to attract tourists back to the region.
“The president will meet with business and tourism leaders to discuss the impacts that they’ve seen on their business because of the oil spill,” Gibbs told the daily White House news briefing.
“It will be important for the president to talk about what are the next steps in bringing the region back,” he said.
For a second day in a row, reporters asked why Obama was only spending a few days in the Gulf in contrast to his planned 10-day trip to Martha’s Vineyard that begins next week.
Gibbs said that Obama and his wife, Michelle, “both believe that it is important to highlight that …the Gulf Coast is, during a busy summer, open for business.”
Cuba travel ban debate elicits strong feelings
No one can remember the last time they had a full House of Representatives committee hearing on whether to lift the U.S. travel ban on Castro’s Cuba.
Perhaps that’s why some strong feelings spilled out into the open.
Florida Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a staunch defender of keeping the decades-old travel ban, told one witness who had advocated lifting it that she found some of his comments “shameful.”
The witness, retired U.S. General Barry McCaffrey, riposted that he was offended by Ros-Lehtinen’s “marginalization” of his viewpoint, adding that her line of questioning was “silly.”
The hearing Thursday of the House Foreign Affairs committee started out peacefully enough. Chairman Howard Berman said lawmakers should examine why Cuba was “the only country in the world where our people are not allowed to go.”
Most of the witnesses then spoke in favor of changing U.S. policy, which was launched in the 1960s in a Cold War bid to isolate Fidel Castro.
But Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-American born in Havana, was clearly determined to resist what proponents say is their best chance in years to lift the ban on travel to Communist Cuba, 90 miles from her state.
The Governor of Idaho – a staunch Republican – and his young young wife (why?) traveled to Cuba (apparently on taxpayer’s money) supposedly to promote business between his state and the communist island. How does that work? Why can he go to buy, sell, trade, or whatever with a communist state? http://gov.idaho.gov/mediacenter/press/p r2007/prapr07/pr_032.htmlOne newspaper noted that “Otter made his fourth trip to Cuba since 2000 — the others came while he was a U.S. House member — to persuade the Castro government to buy more Idaho foodstuffs.” http://www.spokesmanreview.com/breaking/ story.asp?ID=9831
Love those flip flops. Wait he is going to a mosque (Islamic), not a Sihk temple. In winter will he wear a hat if it is cold?